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Imagining Future Cities: Civic Visions

On Wednesday, September 10th, 2025 the Weisman Art Museum hosted a wide-ranging panel conversation on civic visions of the future city with city leaders and scholars in architecture, urban planning, and public policy. The panel conversation took place in the Coffman Theater with introductory remarks offered by University of Minnesota President, Rebecca Cunningham. Former Minneapolis mayor, R.T. Rybak, who was slated to attend, was not able to attend the program. 

Featured speakers: MIT Vice Provost and professor of Urban Design and Public Policy, Brent Ryan, and principal and president of the firm VJAA and head of the U of M School of Architecture, Jennifer Yoos; and, exhibition curator Dingliang Yang; moderated by U of M professor of Architecture and director of the Minnesota Design Center, Thomas Fisher. 

 

Imagining Future Cities is supported in part by the following University of Minnesota entities: College of Design, Imagine Fund, Minnesota Design Center, Research & Innovation Office, and School of Architecture. It is also supported by SOM Foundation, Stratasys, and vari architects. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Additional general operating support is generously provided by Ameriprise Financial. Special thanks to the KHR McNeely Family Foundation, thanks to Kevin, Rosemary, and Hannah Rose McNeely, for their support of the Weisman's exhibitions and exhibition-related programming

Tom Fisher

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About the Moderator
Tom Fisher

Thomas Fisher is professor, director of the Minnesota Design Center, and Dayton Hudson Chair in Urban Design in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota.

Fisher served for 19 years as a dean at the University of Minnesota and became the director of the Minnesota Design Center in 2015. His research has focused on sustainable architecture, design ethics, and community-based service design.

Recognized in 2005 as the fifth most published writer about architecture in the United States, Fisher has written 9 books, over 50 book chapters or introductions, and over 400 articles in professional journals and major publications. Named a top-25 design educator four times by Design Intelligence, he has lectured at 36 universities and over 150 professional and public meetings. He has written extensively about architectural design, practice, and ethics. His latest book, Designing our Way to a Better World (Minnesota) came out in 2016.

Brent Ryan

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About the Speaker
Brent Ryan
Brent D. Ryan is Vice Provost and Professor of Urban Design and Public Policy in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. His research focuses on the aesthetics and policies of contemporary urban design, particularly with respect to current and pressing issues like deindustrialization and climate change. Professor Ryan’s first book Design After Decline: How America Rebuilds Shrinking Cities, was selected by Planetizen as one of its ten best urban planning books of 2012, and his second book, The Largest Art, was published by MIT Press in 2017. Professor Ryan is the co-editor of the Journal of Planning History. 
 
Professor Ryan is currently conducting design and planning studies of shrinking cities, rural settlements, and regions in Italy and Japan. He is also initiating a new book project examining the intersection of tourism, mapping, and travel guides during the 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries.
 
Prior to joining MIT, Professor Ryan taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was also Co-Director of the City Design Center. Professor Ryan holds a B.S. in biology from Yale University, a M. Arch. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in urban design and planning from MIT.

RT Rybak

White man with silver hair, light blue eyes, black blazer, white collared shirt.
About the Speaker
RT Rybak

R.T. Rybak became President and CEO of the Minneapolis Foundation in 2016 after careers in journalism, publishing, urban development and marketing, and 12 years as Mayor of Minneapolis. Under his leadership the Foundation has more than doubled the money it directs to nonprofits, now granting more than $100 million a year in Minnesota and around the world. The Foundation’s giving program focuses on equity and justice in education, economic mobility, and the environment, creating what Rybak calls a “community of generosity” to align like-minded fundholders with emerging community needs. Rybak’s deepest passion is creating career pathways for youth of color, including his founding and ongoing work with Step Up, a youth employment program that has served more than 34,000 Minneapolis high school students since 2003.

Dingliang Yang

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About the Speaker
Dingliang Yang

Dingliang Yang is an architect, urban designer, and the founding partner of VARI Design, a pioneering design firm that was established in 2015 and has dedicated to cross-scale innovative design based on critical research as responses to different urban issues during cities’ developments and regenerations. His design and built works have received various awards and have been widely published internationally in media including Archdaily, Dezeen, Archinect, Gooood, Architect Magazine, Architectural Review and many others, as well as exhibited in Venice Biennale, Beijing International Art Biennale, Beijing Design Week, China International Architectural Decoration and Design Art Fair, Shanghai Urban Space Art Season, and Architecture and Los Angeles Design Museum. Before founding his own practice, Yang previously worked as an architect with SOM in San Francisco and at Coop Himmelb(l)au in Vienna.

Jennifer Yoos

White woman with light brown hair and glasses, wearing all black, leans against concrete wall.
About the Speaker
Jennifer Yoos

Jennifer Yoos became Head of the School of Architecture in June of 2020. She is an architect and educator and has previously taught as the NADAAA Visiting Professor at Cooper Union, the Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, the John G. Williams Distinguished Professor at the University of Arkansas and as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota (1997-2015).

Jennifer is principal and president of VJAA. Based in Minneapolis, the firm is known for its innovative approach to architectural practice, environmental design, and highly crafted buildings. VJAA's practice is grounded in the study of how architecture is interwoven with its social, cultural, and material context. VJAA's work is research-based, experimental, and intentionally diverse, including a wide range of scales from urban design and infrastructure, to architecture, adaptive reuse, installations, and furniture.

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